GazzaS

John, I'm very glad to still see you moving forward nicely with this kit. Your work is very neat and inspiring! Keep it up! Gaz

Some great looking work happening here. Dale! I certainly remember your Tojo. It's my favorite Japanese plane. And yours looks sweet! Gaz

This is the kind of scheme that always troubles me. What to do with non-earth or grey tones?? Lately I've been trying to add shading, oil splotches, and grime using oils, either by either brushing or spattering, with an eye toward implying that usually the ground crew wipes the stuff off the upper surfaces and what is left is dust that clings to the oily residue using grays and browns. While the bottom and hard to reach surfaces don't get a loving wipe. I've also been (trying) using oils to imply color differences due to sunlight and shadow. For instance on a recent T-34 (tank) build, I used a brown filter higher up, and a blue filter further down. It's a bit of a process to get the shades the way I want, and often, the subtle differences I'm trying to imply are lost on film due to flash, lighting, or my poor camera knowledge. I think that if this were my plane, I'd find my paint hack and spray it the same colors. Then I'd work the horizontal surfaces with lighter yellow oils and see how that looked. Then I'd try it with the blue areas. I wouldn't use a white filter because that often results in a frosted look. Then I'd go back to the hack with some brown filters to add a bit of darkening way down low on the yellow. Once done with that, I'd try to darken the blue down low, too. Then, if you like what's happened to the hack, you can try it on the real kit. I was watching this guy over on Aeroscale, and he was doing great things with filters on armor. Here are a few shots that inspired me to experiment with oils: He mentioned using a pink filter on this t-72. I ask you...who would ever think to use pink?? And his use of browns and blues on this T-34 inspired me to follow suit, but without mine looking anywhere near as good as his: I admit that I'm still in an early learning phase when it comes to filters and colors. But I guess I'll never know what can be accomplished if I don't try.

I'm pretty sure it's a common occurrence, Ern. I save beer bottle caps to pour CA into and then dip my homemade CA applicator (a sewing needle with half of the eye filed off) into. I learned too...lol

Tiger looks great, Phil!

Hi Rob, The Wellenmuster was a lot of experimenting with MRP lacquers (I tried enamels and Tamiya Acrylics too, but they didn't work) and air pressure with a little Leveling thinner thrown in the mix. I used an airbrush with a .3mm tip and I worked in two hour sessions once I had the pressure and paint flow right (There was a lot of adjusting while painting). I wore colored latex gloves, and would test on the gloves before I started spraying. There was a fair bit of dry tip, and all in all the pattern must have taken about 8 hours. I tried to imagine myself as a 1/48 scale man painting lazy figure eights and sometime getting bored enough to fiddle with the pattern a bit. I figured that having a heavy spray gun in your hand would limit your spray passes to about a scale meter (12.5mm-ish for my purposes). Often I had to go over the pattern twice. After that, McGuire's buffing compound and microfibre cloth to remove the 1/1 scale overspray. Recently I've learned through experimentation that the best friend of air brushing unmasked camoflage is wet sanding with ultra fine micromesh or using automotive polishing compounds to get rid of 1/1 scale messes. The micromesh is good for large flat surfaces, while the polishing compounds remove the paint slowly enough that you can avoid stripping the edges of raised detail. Gaz

Dale, great to see you building this kit! Looks great! GAz

That's a great kit, Rob! Sure you'll make it awesome.

Back in October I posted working on this one. I worked and worked on it... dropped it... But eventually finished it. Meanwhile, I got the Forum blahs, and wasn't checking in so reg'lar. Now I'm beginning Sturer Emil. It's cannon was the same bore as the secondary batteries on an Iowa class battleship! I've got metal tracks and a metal barrel on the way.

I was trying to undo the work of the mad rivetter on a Trumpy kit. I used a brush to apply the stuff and everything looked filled. But sanding revealed places where the filler didn't get in, or where air bubbles occurred. Never again.

This is the putty of the Devil! It goes on as a liquid and seems to fill a hole. Then you sand and realize you still see a Divot... Or you don't. But then you paint and you realize there are pinholes. Here is where it gets bad. You think: "I'll just add a little more or, I'll use a little CA or maybe Mr. Surfacer. But here is the rub: nothing that you add to it wants to stick through the pressures of sanding. I've tried this stuff on a number of models all with the same problem. Refill and refill and nothing wants to stick all of the time. I'm just gonna use CA from now on. Gaz

That engine detail is unreal! Merry Christmas!

Excellently done mate! As another opponent of plaid fighters, I commend your weathering!

Mrs. Santa was generous once again:

Hi everyone, My best wishes for you and yours in the coming year. I hope you all find lots of bench time this year! Gaz

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

It's amazing what can be brought to a kit with knowledge and patience. For those rare ones I'd like to do, I lack both!

Wow! Very nice, Tom!

love the results of the huge amount of scratchbuilding you're doing!

I think I have been edited. Where’s my little French Maid?

That looks fab! I've been wondering about the "glass" fitting. I'm really anticipating discovering what you will use.

Well... at this moment, I don’t want for anything. But for quality and presentation I’d have to go with Gaspatch Models. Anyone besides me got their 1/48 Henschel Hs 123?

For me, the best movie means if you see it on TV, you'll stop whatever you're doing to watch it despite the fact you've seen it before. 1. Cross of Iron: Best land battle scenes ever.... and James Mason 2. Das Boot: Best Submarine movie. 3. The Blue Max: Great flight scenes, and of course.... James Mason 4. Zulu! .... Color Sergeant Bourne!! 5. Tora Tora Tora Others that continue this list: Gettysburg (1993). All Quiet on the Western Front (original and Johnboy Walton versions). Blackhawk Down. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The best war movies usually don't have any plot and very few or no women. Gaz